This is a first. I had to shovel my way into the garden this morning.

Shovel a path for the ducks to walk to their swimming hole.

Shovel a path to the hoop house the ducks spend the night.

The ducks don’t care how much it snows as long as they can swim. Can you really call what ducks do on water as swimming? They float and paddle, they dive and splash, but swimming implies some effort, and as buoyant as ducks are, floating is effortless for them. They often go to sleep floating on the pond. Which makes me wonder if wild ducks ever fall asleep on a lake, go sleep paddling, and wake up wondering how they got to where they are when they open their eyes.

It has been many years since we’ve seen this much snow. The forecast is for steadily warming temperatures with snow melting warmth knocking on our door. With this much snow it’s easy to imagine this as the start of an ice age, forcing us to flee on foot out of here, sojourning across vast snowfields in search of snow free lands far to the south, thousands and thousands of snow refugees fleeing advancing glaciers nipping at our heels.

In a few days the snow will most likely be gone and my mind can wander through other calamities. Today it is all about the snow.